Thursday, December 20, 2012

Math at the Art Table

    dec 20 003
I saw this Christmas card idea over at whatever… and loved it.

Lately I’ve noticed a lot more children picking up scissors
and snipping on anything they can get their hands on;
paper, ribbon, pipe cleaners, anything.

So I thought this would be a perfect art activity for their interest
and the time of the year.

But I didn’t realize how much math could work into it
until I watched this young man work on his card.
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First he’s trying to decide how long the strip should be for
the base of his tree.
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He decides to measure the gold paper to the width of the card
then cut.
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And continued to measure and cut to build his tree.
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Stopping briefly to cut a much smaller piece to use as the
‘stem’ of the tree.
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Once he worked to the top of his tree he started to decorate it using precut
stickers and the shaped hole punches to make snowflakes and stars.
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This art project included working on measuring, sizing and sequencing.
As well as discussion of the shapes he used.

Then there were children that just enjoyed the cutting.
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